Louis Vuitton's Counterfeit Crusade

FOR a brand that has carefully crafted an aspirational brand identity for the last 160 years, it is to be expected that Louis Vuitton won't permit counterfeit or imitation items and this week it proved just that.

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10 Aug 2015

The French fashion house has filed a legal suit at Beijing's Haidian District Court regarding the sale of counterfeit goods on TaoBao, Alibaba's (China's biggest online commerce company) e-commerce marketplace. The Fashion Law reports that Vuitton claims that three of TaoBao's individual sellers "were formerly convicted of operating a 'serious' counterfeit involving the sale of Louis Vuitton goods between 2011 and 2014. As a result, Louis Vuitton is owed 250,000 yuan, or $37,900 at current exchange, in economic damages."

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The luxury label is not the first to take Alibaba to task. French fashion conglomerate Kering sued it for the second time in May 2015 for allegedly selling replica items from its stable of brands including Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Gucci.

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While the outcome of Louis Vuitton's case in China is yet to be seen, the brand have had less success with separate legal proceedings brought against canvas-tote company My Other Bag (MOB) this week. Louis Vuitton claimed that MOB, which prints famous bag designs - from an array of different brands - onto canvas totes, "created, marketed and sold designs that infringe an array of its trademarks and copyrights thereby putting its 'decades of substantial investment and effort at risk'".

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The Southern District of New York court denied Louis Vuitton's motion, stating that MOB's designs amounted to nothing more than parodies and therefore cannot be prosecuted for trademark infringement.

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Louis Vuitton

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17 Jul 2015

"Parody is one of the oldest and most beloved ways in our culture to address social, economic, and political issues. One of America's founding, and to us, most important principles, is freedom of speech and it must be protected and fought for," Tara Martin, founder and CEO of MOB, told The Fashion Law. "People shouldn't be afraid to make a joke for fear of a trademark lawsuit. Hopefully this decision sends that message."